Colony 5: Desert
by DarkBeta
Summary: Soldiers without a war and citizens without a country; who are they then?
1. It Will Happen on a Holiday

Colony: Desert 1, by DarkBeta

(The Rat Patrol are not mine. Nevertheless i'm taking them out to play . . . a long, long way from home. This first chapter is a boring list of names and relations. If you can slog thru it, i think the next one will be better. [kowtows abjectly])

**[North Africa, Sunday, 1942]**

One of the Arabs said he'd seen a German tank, but a full day's patrol found no sign of it. And then, just as Troy was about to order them back to base, Moffitt's jeep skidded into a patch of soft sand. Shovels and sweat failed to get it out. They had chained the two jeeps together to yank the second one out of its sandtrap, when Tully spotted rifles at the dune crest. They went to ground between the vehicles as bullets scraped the sand.

"We haven't done anything to make the locals mad, have we?" Hitch asked, shifting his matchstick to the other side of his mouth.

"You, Rahouleh, Thursday night," Tully grunted.

Hitch grinned, snapping off a shot that made one of the rifles slide out of sight.

"She's not mad at me any more. Not since Friday."

"General dissatisfaction with my countrymen, perhaps. I've heard no rumors of anything more organized," Moffit reported.

Troy rose for a couple of shots, and dropped to sit with his back against the tire as a fusillade answered him.

"You hear something?" Tully drawled.

They all heard it, a grumble that got louder, the thunk of tread on sand. The tank they'd been hunting lurched across the shoulder of a dune.

The turret swiveled. The great gun dropped to an easy target. A staff car pulled up by the tank. Sheltered by its armor, Hauptmann Dietrich called down to them.

"Welcome, Sergeant Troy. Our new camouflage was working so well, I was content to avoid complication and allow your vehicles to pass. Until nature conspired against you, that is. Do you intend to surrender, or shall I test the tank's ordinance as well as its concealment?"

"Think I can get him with a ricochet," Hitch muttered, sighting along his rifle.

Troy's jaw was clenched in his patented glower. Only a few admonitory bullets whinged by, as both sides waited on his decision.

Under the glaring desert sun, they saw no other lights. Only a shadow overhead, and then nothing they would ever remember.


	2. Waking Up Blind

Colony 4, Chapter 2, by DarkBeta

**[Desert, Morning of the First Day]**

Karl Werber sat bolt upright.

["I am awake, Hauptmann!"] he said earnestly, and then looked around.

Not garrison duty, driving the Hauptmann to and from his office. He was in the field, parked beside a tank, and in the swale below sat two of those damned American vehicles. He couldn't have fallen asleep, not during action. Could he? The Hauptmann would have him shot!

Where was Hauptmann Dietrich? Why was everything so quiet? Werber got out of the car. He scratched his head, and then his crotch. Circling around the car, he almost stepped on his Hauptmann. Dietrich was faintly pink with sunburn.

"Herr!"

Werber was a big man. He managed to fold Dietrich into the back seat of the command car, out of the sun.

["The S.S. is not fond of you, Sergeant Troy,"] Dietrich muttered.

["Sir? Wake up! What are your orders?"]

Werber risked shaking his shoulder, but Dietrich drifted deeper into sleep, snoring slightly. Werber looked up at the massive tank. A tank commander outranked a mere staff driver. He took a crowbar out of the repair kit and banged on its side. The metal plates reverberated like thunder.

["Wake you! Lazy!"]

Through the ventilation slits he heard a panicked, ["What? What?"] Grinning, he prepared to look innocent.

He glanced down at the American vehicles again. Was that a hand? He swallowed, his brief satisfaction gone. Karl had woken up. The tank crew had woken too, or at least were waking. What about the damned Americans? Those four had killed hundreds of good German soldiers. Who would be their first target but Sonia Werber's son Karl, who was too big to get out of the way?

He took the Luger from its holster and checked that it was loaded. At the end of that task, Dietrich still slept, no-one had emerged from the tank, and that pale hand still lay on the baked soil. Hadn't there been sand before? With a sigh of resignation, Werber started down the slope.

That was definitely a hand. It did not move. Werber edged about the nose of the nearer vehicle, the pistol in his hand with the safety off, and the crowbar over his other shoulder.

Three of the four had fallen backward, into a tangle between the two vehicles. The fourth sat against one of the tires. His head was propped against the side of the car so that for a moment Werber thought the man looked at him. The Luger came up. But nobody moved, only the little shifting that was breath, and all their eyes were closed.

He aimed for the sitting man's forehead, under that foolish hat. He took time to get it right, settling his stance the way the army taught him. He could shoot the man. He could shoot them all, and avenge those they had killed.

["Information,"] the Hauptmann said in his memory. ["Montgomery's death, that would be worth much to Germany. But Montgomery alive, in our hands, that would be ten times . . . a hundred times more."]

"Bang," Werber said, remembering those cowboy movies he used to watch when he was a boy. "Bang. Bang. Bang."

They lived now because Karl Werber allowed it. He just had to make them safe until Hauptmann Dietrich decided what to do. They might wish they'd been shot after all. Even here in Africa, far away from Berlin, mention of the S.S. made a good soldier want to keep his head down.

He found wire in the back of the nearest vehicle. No-one took a car out into the desert without a way to put it back together in case of accident. One by one he dragged them out onto open ground, starting with the tall blond who looked like he belonged to Hitler's Youth. Wire looped wrists and ankles together. He used pliers to wind the ends in tightly. Enough wire remained to loop about their necks as well, stringing them together like ducks at the market.

The man in the foolish hat had scared him -- no, startled him -- when Werber saw him sitting by the car. Werber kicked him in the side. Aside from a grunting exhalation, the sleeper didn't react. Werber kicked him again. He thought he heard something crack so he stopped. He kicked the blond instead, for being so stupid he fought for the Americans instead of the Fatherland.

The blond grunted, but he also tried to roll away from the blow. Werber took three steps back and put his hand on the Luger. Then he walked away from the Americans, back to the command car.

Dietrich sat up. The Hauptmann blinked vaguely, and he stared at Werber as if he'd forgotten what name to call him, but he'd straightened his uniform.

["Where are we?"] he asked, when Werber came to the window.

["In the desert,"] Werber said.

["This is a different desert."]

Werber shrugged. Desert was desert. Figuring out where they were was the Hauptmann's problem, not his.

["Report,"] the Hauptmann said.

Werber straightened, put his shoulders back, and prepared to follow orders. The command structure was in place. Everything was good again.


	3. Intimations

Desert, Chapter 3: Intimations

"Don't try to sit up."

Moffitt blinked at the burning sky. Something tugged at his throat. Couldn't be a tie, not out in the desert. He left that sort of thing behind in England.

He reached to loosen the noose and found his hands were tied. They were in front of him, so he completed the gesture. Loops of wire about wrists, neck and -- he shifted position to check -- ankles. Easier to escape than rope, in some ways, but uncomfortable. He lay in a row with a handful of other men, bound as he was, baking on a cracked dust-colored plain.

"This looks a bit like the slopes of the Caucasus, but . . . ."

"Company," the man next to him muttered.

Tully. And Hitch had warned him not to move. Moffitt felt memory slip back into place. War, and the desert. His desert, not this travesty. Comrades. Pleasant to have that settled, although not -- he raised his eyes to find Dietrich above them -- a pleasant situation.

"First that well-sited patch of sand, and now this. The fortunes of war favor me."

Moffitt turned his head far enough to the other side to see Troy. Still unconscious, to all appearances, and if he wasn't Moffitt had no intention of betraying that fact.

"Gloating, Hauptmann?" he asked, to claim Dietrich's attention. "Why did you bring us here?"

"Yeah. Why aren't we on a fast train to the Gestapo?" Hitch spat.

Dietrich rocked on his heels.

"Oddly enough, my question for you was the same. How did the Allies bring us here? Why did they bring us here?"

"And where is here? You don't know either," Moffiitt discovered.

Sergeant Troy opened his eyes. He stiffened, testing the wire that bound him, and then relaxed back onto the sand.

"Everyone okay?" he asked.

"Mm-hmmm."

"Well enough, all things considered," Moffitt said dryly.

"A-1, Sarge," Hitch shifted position, and winced. "Aside from a boot print or two while I wasn't looking."

"You too?" Troy asked, staring at Dietrich.

The Hauptmann shrugged off his accusation.

"It is not necessary that I understand why the Allies would dump myself and my men, together with our vehicles and weapons, at some undetermined distance from our previous location, leaving no evidence of the method of transport. My duty is to return to my command. However your inclusion is either an accident or the first stage of some subtle attack."

Hitch laughed.

"Subtle? Us? I think you're thinking about four other guys."

"Perhaps I should simply have you shot, and render the question moot."

He stared down at Troy. Moffitt couldn't decide if Dietrich was serious. Did he taunt the prisoners to show they were helpless, or had he finally tired of duelling the Rat Patrol? Embarassing to die like this. He'd expected to die fighting. Or in the desert, which took its sacrifices like an ancient god.

No worse a fate than other Nazi prisoners had. Better than being questioned, when Dietrich sent them back to his command. Better than the camp Troy had endured.

"We weren't left here by my people," Troy admitted.

"So far as you know. Perhaps your superiors are like mine, in how much information they share with those of us who do the fighting."

"So it could be your guys," Hitch argued. "If the Allies could hop across the board like a guy winning at checkers, we'd be in Berlin right now."

"Or we," Dietrich mused, "would be in London."

Moffitt laughed.

"As long as we're talking fairy stories . . . my ancestors would say we've been pixie-led. Perhaps the djinn brought us here."

"Yeah. Lots of genies around here," Hitch said. "Bet they don't like you any more than we do."

"I see you have no information for me. A few hours of contemplation may refresh your memories."

He turned away.

"You leaving us in the sun?" Troy called.

Dietrich barked a command at the soldier behind him. The man returned to suspend a tarpaulin above the prisoners. He grinned down at them when he finished.

"Bang," he said, pointing a finger at each of them. "Bang, bang, bang."

Moffitt swallowed.

"I suspect we know who will have the task of shooting us, if Hans changes his mind."

"Never saw him before, but I think I recognize his shoe size," Hitch said.

"Work together to sit up," Troy ordered. "Ready? Move it."

They managed to shift positions without strangling themselves, barely. Troy's jaw clenched as he moved. He kept the elbows of his bound arms pressed to his sides. Why had Troy stayed supine while Dietrich stood over them, watching like a jackal for signs of weakness? Moffitt started to ask what was wrong. He got a glare that shut his mouth on the unspoken words.

"Sit back to back," he suggested instead. "We can watch the whole camp, and see if anyone's keeping too close an eye on us."

Habit positioned them in familiar pairs, Moffitt and Tully on one side while Troy and Hitch shifted around to the other. Moffitt began to pry at the wire about his ankles. Later he felt Troy's weight against his back, resting more heavily than the other man would choose. Hitch didn't comment, so he hadn't noticed. Moffitt stayed silent too.

oooooooo

The soldiers had raised the Hauptmann's tent. Dietrich hooded the kerosene lamp and pulled his campstool close to the netted entrance, to see the brilliance of the desert night. Lights unchanging for a thousand years, that shone at last on a Reich to match their endurance.

He sat for nearly an hour, trying to argue away what he saw. The brandy-laced coffee was cold when he drank it. He roused Werber from snoring sleep to send him for one of the prisoners.

In the desert's quiet, he had no trouble hearing their protest. Troy claimed the right to know where his subordinate was being taken. Knowing nothing, Werber told them nothing. A blow settled the discussion, for the time being.. Dietrich shook his head. Werber would never understand, that when you had to use force you had already failed in control.

The Englishman's face was blank as Werber pushed him into the tent. He was prepared for anything. Dietrich approved. The English were Europeans, after all. They did not display their emotions like overgrown children, or like the Americans.

"What do you see in the sky?"

Moffitt's German was adequate, even good, but Dietrich spoke in English. This was nothing he wanted Werber to understand.

"Excuse me?"

"The night sky. The stars. What do you see?"

Moffitt stared at him. One virtue in the Americans; they were less able to express silent contempt. Dietrich found his hand beginning to tap impatiently, before the other man turned in the tent entrance and looked up.

As if he knew Dietrich saw him silhouetted against the desert sky, Moffitt did not shift position. His face still revealed nothing. Knowing it was a weakness, Dietrich asked the question anyhow.

"Do you see it too?"

"Send your goon for Sergeant Troy."

"You do not give orders here."

He meant to sound commanding, but he could hear for himself that the words were only pettish. In spite of hands still bound together, Moffitt's shrug managed to be impertinent.

"I will say nothing while my commander is not present. Deliver me back to the others if you prefer."

He waited with that same obdurate lack of expression while Dietrich shouted Werber awake again, and sent him for Troy. His expression didn't change as Dietrich set a Luger on the table.

"Sit down, please. No, on the floor. I think it best if you are not tempted to move, ah, too abruptly."

Moffitt sat, with the smooth skill learned in a childhood among the desert nomads. Dietrich kept his hand on the gun. They did not speak.

Troy stumbled as Werber pushed him into the tent. He looked around once as he caught his balance. Dietrich was certain the man had memorized the position of every person and object in that instant.

["This time, stay awake,"] Dietrich hissed at Werber, as the orderly took up station behind him.

["Certainly, Sir."]

"How is German hospitality these days?" Troy asked Moffitt.

"Courteous enough, for now. The Hauptmann has . . . a puzzle for us. He asks that you look at the sky outside."

Troy's eyes widened. He was not as good as Moffitt at concealing his reaction to the unexpected.

"Sir? We need a third opinion here," the Englishman added.

"This better be good," Troy muttered, but he stepped back outside the tent.

["Let the American look at the sky,"] Dietrich called to the guard. ["He will return into the tent."]

Some eight minutes later Troy walked back in. He sat down on the camp stool from which Moffitt had been deterred. His face was impassive. One arm stayed clamped to his side, as if he had forgotten to conceal his weakness.

"I need a cigarette."

"You see the difficulty," Moffitt commented, folding his hands on one raised knee.

"Yes. We seem to be --" he looked at Dietrich, "-- we all seem to be detached from our forces. Shall we agree on a truce?"

"Why should I make truce with prisoners?"

He was not mocking, only bewildered. Troy rocked the stool and looked irritated.

"I am trying to take the high road here, but . . . ."

The hand holding his side moved up to emphasize his point. And something silver dropped toward Moffitt, who rolled under the table as Troy rocked forward again and launched himself across the top of it. Werber was swinging his rifle about when Troy shoved it aside. They fell back against the tent wall.

Bullets tore through the roof of the tent. Dietrich caught a glimpse of those mocking stars, as Moffitt yanked at his chair so that he fell back, flailing. Then he lay on the rug. The hand with the Luger in it was pinned under Moffitt's knee. At Dietrich's throat was a knife he couldn't see. He only had to feel it.

The scuffle by the tent wall ended in silence.

"Sarge?" Moffitt asked, not looking away from his prisoner.

A gasping breath.

"Werber?" Dietrich suggested, not really hopefully.

"Down . . . for the count," Troy managed.

Moffitt twisted toward the tent entrance.

"Where is the outside guard? He should have come running."

With an almost audible flare, the headlights of the staff car spotlit the tent entrance. Moffitt leaned harder on Dietrich, refusing to be distracted twice. The Hauptmann smiled up at a face that was suddenly half glare and half shadow, like the composition of a decadent artist.

"You see, I have learned to take no chances. You will walk outside and kneel, with your hands on your heads, or the tank commander fires at your privates."

"Gruesome, even for a Nazi," Moffitt said without inflection.

"Give me the knife back," Troy ordered.

The Englishman sat back from his prisoner, and tossed it. The thunk of it and Werber's groan came together. Dietrich thought his man had been the target, until he looked and saw the tiny knife vibrating in a tent pole, just above Werber's crossed eyes. Troy pried it out and got to his feet. Walking back past Dietrich, he drove the knife into the table top.

"Think about a truce," he said. "We don't need to go on fighting here."

Moffitt coiled to his feet as well. Dietrich got up, holding the Luger on them. Troy turned his back on Dietrich and the gun. He and Moffitt walked out into the glare. The tank commander -- Gesell -- shouted orders.

"Do you suppose Hans knew he was punning?" Dietrich heard the Englishman ask.

"Doubt it."

"Pity. It seemed a humanizing touch."

["The prisoners are secure, Hauptmann. Are you well?"]

Gesell's concern was not, of course, personal. Perhaps he had sufficiently considered the problems they faced that he was not eager to assume command. Dietrich went to stand in the light, to reassure his men and to give orders for the night. The two prisoners were taken away. An irritated command sent the tent guard running to switch off the staff car's headlights.

["Ach. My side! What happened? Are they gone?"] Werber asked as he sat up.

["You told me you had disarmed the prisoners."]

["Hauptmann, I did. I . . . ."]

["Fool. Go. Get out of here."]

He sat on the edge of his cot, stripping off his uniform jacket so it wouldn't crease. He lay back. Stars laughed through the bullet holes at him. That was not the sky of Africa or Europe. He closed his eyes.

Perhaps not even Earth. He touched the thought gingerly, like a healing wound.

Sam Troy thought this strangeness reason enough for a truce. They had fought as allies once or twice before, faced with a common menace. In this place, what did duty command?


	4. Darkness Falls

**Colony 5: Desert, Chapter 4****, by DarkBeta**

**(Night of the first day)**

Dietrich stood at the edge of a rally. Thousands of people pressed him so far back he could barely see the man whose voice ranted from the loudspeakers. He had a telescope, but he looked through the wrong end of it. The speaker shrank to insignificance and the packed crowd turned into a plain of sand.

On moonless nights the sky and stars looked real and the desert like an illusion. Dietrich looked down. He was standing on the night sky. When he looked up he saw desert overhead. It fell away. He floated alone and chill among the stars.

The cold was real. The desert lost heat swiftly after sunset. He stared at the darkness. He couldn't see even the canvas above his cot.

He wasn't fanciful enough to suppose the dream was a message, but it forced him to an admission. Against all reason, he believed. Perhaps by dawn he could find some argument against the stars. Here, alone in the dark, he knew this wasteland was no part of Earth. If he were fanciful, which he wasn't, he would wonder if it was Hell.

Forget old soft superstition. This was a strange world, but a real one. It could kill the men of his command as easily as the deserts of Africa, or the winter streets of Berlin. The fleet had fuel enough for a day's travel, and no hope of resupply. Water enough for two days or three. Not even a tribal rumor of where to find more.

He'd head for the mountains. Leave the tank behind, too slow and too greedy of fuel. Maybe the staff car as well. Take the lighter captured vehicles. Leave everything but weapons and water.

He had won. The Rat Patrol were his prisoners. He should exult at a long duel over.

Duty said to leave them. Share water with four of the enemy, when he wasn't sure of enough for his own men? Waste fuel on their transport? Even four bullets were an extravagance, when the only ammo was what they carried.

He was too close to sleep. He saw what he would find, if he ever came back. If he tried to retrieve what he'd abandoned.

They tried to walk out. Got several kilometers nearer the base of the range than anyone who hadn't fought them would predict. After another seven kilometers they might have found an untainted spring, and survived. Moffitt and Troy had beeen most attuned to the desert. They might have gotten farther, but the remains weren't much separated.

(Troy crawled with the blond boy hung across his back, like one of the Arab donkeys with a load twice its size. Moffitt fell and scraped at the sand, anchored by the weight of the mechanic.)

The heads were intact, though their clothes were shredded and the remaining bones gnawed and scattered. The new land didn't lack sharp teeth in the night.

(A shout and a flung stone, and the ring of red eyes fell back a few yards. The next stone the jackals only dodged. One more shout as they moved in, half of an Arabic curse. Snarls and yips and the sound of feeding.)

He had seen men killed by the desert before. Skin and flesh were as hard and dark as jerky. Sunken lids gapped on darkness where the eyes had baked away. After death the withered lips drew into false screams. Dietrich jolted awake as the mouths began to speak.

His own sweat smelled bitter to him. He didn't want them to die. What was it, over a year now that the Rat Patrol had carried a price on their heads? Over a year that he had watched their moves across the desert chessboard? Strangers could become known in that time, though he'd met them face-to-face for only a handful of hours, a few days in all.

Respect for an enemy was not betrayal of the Reich. Was it? They made fools of every commander in the area, his own failures lost among the others, or else he would have been called to Berlin and not returned. Still, was he complicit in their luck? Too willing to bargain, too willing to keep them alive when they were in his hands, too certain that this time they couldn't escape?

He would not shift this task to Werber. If some part of him was traitor, he would redeem it tomorrow. Four bullets were not too great a fee, if they were his victory and last mercy and penitence all at once.

The night was colder now. Too cold to lie still. He'd get up, plan how to move out in the morning, maybe smoke a cigarette.

Surefooted in his own tent, he shrugged into the jacket and went to light the lamp. A stranger glared at him across the table.

["Peace be upon you, and upon your kin,"] he said, in Arabic.

No, this was no stranger. Ubaid. The leader, more or less, of the men Dietrich had hired to guide him, and to make sure the tank trials weren't observed. He'd forgotten about the Arabs. They must have woken as bewildered as his own men, and retreated to the desert to regroup. Damn Werber for not saying anything!

["The enemy takes us from our home. They leave us in a wilderness without palms, where we seek all day for water. They leave us to die. I and my men are not sheep to be herded. We have guns and knives. We are warriors, and we will slay the enemy."]

Dietrich did not let his disquiet show. He had ordered a guard set, but the guard hadn't stopped Ubaid. Nine Germans, most of whom slept, attacked by five or more Arabs. Hand-smithed rifles against German technology, but the raid might be over before the better weapons could make a difference.

["We are brothers in ill fortune. My people too are moved without choice. Let us seek this enemy together."]

Ubaid inclined his head.

["So I say to my kin. It cannot be our good friends the Germans. It must be the English."]

And had he decided that before they spied on the camp, and saw who held the guns? Dietrich sat down. He gestured to another camp stool.

["Please, be welcome to my tent. I will call my servant to brew tea for us, and we will plan together."]

["Your servant sleeps. Do not trouble him. You hold four of the enemy. They will tell us how they drugged us, and carried us, and left us with no trace of how we came. And we will make them give us back our home."]

Doubtless Werber did sleep, snoring on the seat of the staff car. Ubaid would not wish Dietrich to have an ally, if the discussion turned violent. Well enough. Werber would be small help. Ubaid implied the Arabs had found water already. Dietrich needed to know where it was.

["The four Allied soldiers slept as we slept, and are lost as we are. They did not bring us here. Such a thing is beyond the Reich's power, and we Germans know more of science than the English."]

Was he certain? Would the Allies sacrifice a four-man patrol to rid themselves of a Hauptmann and an experimental tank? Or was the Rat Patrol's presence the accident it appeared, their loss unintended?

["Believe? Give us the captives. Once we question them, you will know!"]

["I have plans for them. Let us speak instead of where friends and allies may journey to find shelter in this land."]

["What do the lives of slaves matter, between friends?"]

Dietrich smiled.

["Very true. I am glad to have your agreement."]

Ubaid stood, and walked away from the table. He stopped by the tent wall, barely visible in the light of the guttering lantern.

["Do you know where the springs rise, that we found easily? Do your machines feed on desert brush, and will they carry you across barren land? Where will you go, without roads or maps?"]

Dietrich inclined his head. Ubaid knew the value of his people. That was unfortunate, but not unexpected. The Arab went on.

["Fadahunsi wants blood. He says, let us kill all the Franks. Take their guns, and find our own way home."]

["If your man knows the road away from here, I bow to his insight."]

Ubaid shrugged an eloquent opinion of Fadahunsi's insight.

["We make no alliance with the English invaders. They break the promises they made. They are barbarians, who spit upon civilized men. Let good friends exchange gifts, slaves you do not need for the knowledge you do."]

["So Fadahunsi, and the men he sways, will be sated. For a time they will not question your plans,"] Dietrich acknowledged, fighting toward a decision.

This was a second offer of truce. In the desert he needed the Arabs, if he was going to keep his own command alive. He needed Ubaid, who needed his support to remain leader. And the Arab made certain that the German and English castaways wouldn't ally against him.

Troy, arrogantly, offered nothing but his team's cooperation. He'd keep the agreement, too proud of his slavish morality to break it. Ubaid would provide water and food and guidance, and betray the Germans as soon as he saw an advantage in it. If Dietrich had some valued resource, he should husband it.

["One,"] he said. ["I will give you one to question. And if you discover the English did not bring us here, return my slave. I will need work done, that we and you are too proud for."]

["Two. If the one we question first is mute, the one who sees it done will speak. Let one be the Englishman."]

Two men's blood on his hands. What was that to a soldier?

["Tomorrow you will lead us to water, and we will discuss where to journey. Then I will give two men to you. They know nothing of the road back. When you confirm this, I want the slaves to labor for me again, so do no permanent hurt to their eyes, their limbs, or their manhood."]

["What use is manhood in a slave?"] Ubaid laughed.

He gave Dietrich a sly look.

["Or is it true, what is said of men from the cities?"]

Dietrich kept his hands flat on the table, though they whitened a bit as he pressed down. He and his men needed that water. More than that. With water, he had no reason to kill laborers who might prove useful. Two of the enemy would be spared, more if Ubaid's methods weren't too final. In time they'd understand that it was better to join the Germans than be alone in this land.

Yes, Ubaid knew the value of his people. He knew Dietrich would not react to the insult, would pretend not to hear or understand. He was a stupid man. His use was temporary, and he and his men were eminently disposable.

["You say the English ape civilization? We Germans pride ourselves on abhorring it."]


	5. Reaction

**Colony 5, Chapter 5: Reaction ****, by DarkBeta**

**(Desert, Morning of the Second Day)**

The mountains an hundred miles or more away were as sharp and clear as nearby boulders. White capped them, and white picked out the valleys and crevices halfway down their sides, like gold leaf ornamenting a manuscript. Moffitt watched the slopes brighten from black silhouettes to misty purple to blue to sturdy grey-green.

The sun raked the plain without any veiling haze. The remorseless light made the desert more real, more truthful than any other place.

Dietrich's aide Werber brought over a canteen, and poured the prisoners a half cup of water apiece. It amused him to pull the cup away as each man reached for it, or to act as if he meant to pour it out. He laughed at his own wit.

"Simple minds, simple pleasures," Tully muttered.

Troy just stared, until the man hesitated and handed over the cup. As Werber turned away he saw Moffitt watching.

["You laugh? Swine-dog!"]

He swung a heavy fist. Moffitt fell back to avoid most of the blow's force. He landed sprawled, in no position to evade another assault. Werber took a step after him, moving into kicking range.

"Enough. You'd better go see if Dietrich has other errands to run," Troy told him.

Werber understood only his commander's name. He looked down at the man he'd threatened.

["What does he say about the Hauptmann? He will speak respectfully of the Hauptmann!"]

["He said, Hauptmann Dietrich may have other work. You do not wish to be dilatory."]

Werber looked back at the Hauptmann's tent. He shifted from foot to foot like a schoolboy.

"Schweinhund," he said again.

He spat on Moffitt, turned, and trotted back to the tent.

"Nazi bastard," Hitch said.

Moffitt sat up. He scrubbed the spittle away with a handful of crumbling red earth. His face was pale, but he spoke levelly on another topic.

"Not much water, and no food. Hans isn't being over-generous."

Hitch nodded.

"You can say that again. My mouth's so dry it's growing cactus."

"Dietrich didn't expect to be stranded. He won't have much to spare."

Troy sounded grim. Moffitt glanced at him, and then made his own voice deliberately light.

"Quite. If our host is running short we should be considerate guests, and relieve him of our company. We have no reason to stay around."

"Sounds good to me!" Hitch said, and Tully nodded.

Across the camp, Werber disassembled Dietrich's tent. The Hauptmann addressed the tank crew. The three men were not pleased. He dismissed their arguments and turned away. They went sullenly back to the tank. Troy watched as one man squatted above the fuel inlet and the other two unfolded a camouflaged canvas cover.

"They're leaving the tank behind, and scavenging the fuel and water for the other vehicles. Dietrich's going for the hills out there."

"He won't have time to look for stray prisoners," Moffitt suggested.

Troy's nod acknowledged that the longer they were on short rations, the more unlikely an escape became. Tully flinched as one of the tank crew started a jeep and tried to back up. Gears ground angrily.

"Engine won't last long, the way they're treating it."

They went still as Dietrich came toward them.

"Sergeants, come now. You will travel in my car."

"What about Pettigrew and Hitchcock?" Troy protested. "The Geneva Convention requires . . . ."

"Geneva is far away."

The Hauptmann put a hand up to stall further protests.

"Your men will accompany mine on your, ah, patrol vehicles. They will be separate. Perhaps that will discourage excessive ingenuity."

Hitch watched Troy and Moffitt led away.

"Bet riding in that staff car is cooler than being out in the open."

Tully shrugged.

"Rank."

The tank commander stamped over in Dietrich's wake. A subordinate strolled behind him.

"You. With me," he barked at Tully, and jerked his head at Hitch. "You. With him. Sit. No move. No . . . no trouble. Or run. Behind."

He mimed a man dragged at rope's end.

"Right, Tully. Don't make too much noise. I know you've been wanting to improve your sprints, but this isn't the time."

Tully snorted. He and Hitch followed their respective Germans. Any glance at the two men being pushed into the back of the staff car was brief, and well hidden.

ooooooo

The Hauptmann had surrendered the spacious back seat to his prisoners. He rode by his driver. Both Germans tried, as a courtesy, to pretend the other was far distant.

On rough ground, the Volkswagen moved little faster than a man walking. Often it swerved about rocks or gullies. Bound hands meant they didn't always stay upright as it jounced. Moffitt wedged himself more firmly into the corner of the seat. He shivered.

"Somebody's walking on my grave."

"Air cooling," Troy grunted.

He stared out the window, marking landmarks on the path back to the camp. Moffitt did the same on the other side. The car's progress was erratic enough that they did not react as it slowed and stopped. Werber got out of the driver's seat and pulled open the door on Troy's side.

"Aus. Schnell!"

Troy didn't move. Dietrich turned. The partition between the front and back sections came down. His Luger threatened Moffitt.

"Leave the car."

The Englishman leaned back.

"You won't get the upholstery clean again."

However Troy slid out into the desert sun. Moffitt shrugged and followed, blinking against the slap of light. Werber slammed the door and folded back into his own seat. The sun had heated it in the few minutes the door stood open, and he cursed. The stately car moved away. Heat ripples wavered over the black roof.

"I begin to feel like an unwanted cat," Moffitt complained. "Hans tired of our company rather suddenly. Does he expect thirst to shuffle us off, or sunstroke?"

Troy squatted down to pick up a rock. As he stood, he scanned the baked plain about them.

"This isn't Dietrich's style of execution."

"Quite. He isn't standing about to gloat."

"It's too random. What does he know, that we don't?"

The Arab horsemen appeared from the direction opposite the retreating dust of the staff car. Moffitt glanced around. Just the scattered rocks and spiny plants he'd seen before, nothing large enough to put their backs against. To run was futile. He found a rock too, hefting it like a shotput.

The howling riders were ten yards away. Nine. Eight. Time stretched on the verge of action. Seven. Six. From a standing start Troy lunged toward them, too sudden for the riders to react. Moffitt followed. Five. Two stones in the air. Four. Three. Moffitt's target fell, and Troy's reeled in the saddle. Two. One.

Moffitt rose shrieking under a horse's muzzle, so it shied. The brown-robed rider cursed and struggled to turn it back. The second stone-struck rider fell. Troy caught his mount's breastband and swung into the saddle. It fought the reins. He hauled it about. Wedging the reins between his leg and the saddle, he reached down for Moffitt.

Another rider shouldered alongside the protesting horse. Deftly he pushed the American's leg up. Troy fell, turning like a cat to keep from toppling Moffitt. Swinging his belt like a whiplash Moffitt stood over him.

["Take them alive! They can tell us nothing if they are dead!"]

The riders circled, striking with sheathed swords. The rest was the confusion of a lost battle. Troy had no time to find his feet again. Moffitt fell, not knowing if it was a hoof or a rifle butt that drove him down.

ooooooo

Werber took a deep breath, careful not to be so loud that Dietrich would notice. The Hauptmann was in the back seat where he belonged. The Arabs had led them to good water. And two prisoners were gone, which meant less work guarding and tending the rest of them.

["If they had had their hands free, I believe they would have escaped,"] the Hauptmann said.

Was that criticism? Werber swallowed, making sure his voice wouldn't squeak.

["They didn't, my sir. I made sure of that. I was very careful."]

["Yes. I know."]

If Werber had erred, the Hauptmann would say. Dietrich did not sound pleased though.

["Did the prisoners run when they saw the riders? They could not get far. Surely Ubaid and his men rode them down?"]

Driving, with his attention on the uneven earth, he had not been able to watch. The Hauptmann had, turned in his seat. That rankled a bit. Was it not Werber who had captured the men? Who had chosen not to shoot them? He should have gotten to see what happened.

["They ran . . . toward their attackers. Neither Troy nor his men ever failed of audacity. Better for them if they had. Better if, only once, they had chosen not to patrol."]

The Hauptmann leaned forward, rubbing both hands over his face. When he leaned back against the seat again, he looked forbidding of further questions.

["Do not loiter. I wish to rendezvous with the other vehicles some time today."]

The dust cloud of the caravan was already visible ahead of them. Werber hunched his shoulders against the unjustified complaint, but he was not fool enough to comment.

_(Fair warning now: the next chapter (weeks or months from now) will be extremely violent.)_


End file.
